Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the guest author.
News and social media reports have been flying about Kate Cox, a 31-year-old pregnant woman with two other children, who sued to obtain an abortion in Texas for a fetal diagnosis of Trisomy 18, a chromosomal abnormality associated with birth defects, stillbirth, or perinatal death. Ultimately, Ms. Cox was unsuccessful and went out of state to seek an abortion.
While abnormal fetal diagnosis is traumatic for any parent, I am reminded of how important medical counseling and professional recommendations can add to or ease that trauma, depending on presentation. While many of these children do not survive to birth or die shortly after delivery, there have been several who have survived into the teen years or adulthood.
This disability, while often portrayed as incompatible with life, is quite variable in its presentation and thus, a lack of uniform outcome complicates the decision-making.
Ms. Cox had her two other children by cesarean section, so an argument was made that an induction for vaginal birth could cause a uterine rupture or a repeat C-section could cause future complications with her own health and fertility. A national conversation commenced about the politics and legality of her requesting a D&E (Dilatation & Evacuation) abortion in order to reduce her personal health risk and provide a “humane” resolution to her baby’s poor prenatal diagnosis. It’s also hard to know how much was her own feelings or if this is just what she was counseled to do by her physicians.
One unfortunate pattern since the overturning of Roe v Wade with the Dobbs decision is the sheer amount of medical misinformation, hyperbole, and downright lies on the pro-abortion side that have been magnified by a lack of understanding of medical scenarios as well as variance in individual states laws.
Health care professionals (HCPs) are often themselves misinformed about management and terminology. Some of these HCPs are affected by their own ideological concerns. We have seen treatment for ectopic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, and retained placentas called “abortions.” We have seen pro-lifers accused of wanting women to walk around with stillborn babies. We have repeatedly been characterized as having no feelings or concerns for the mother, only the fetus, and then only until birth.
People also seem to have no knowledge of what an abortion actually is or what they are supporting. I wonder, if they were present in the room when an unborn baby is aborted, would they have the same feeling about it?
In abortion, an unborn baby is hormonally starved (abortion pill), vacuumed out (suction aspiration), scraped out (D&C/Dilatation & Curettage), dismembered — torn limb from limb (D&E/Dilatation & Evacuation), or lethally injected with a substance such as digoxin (a medication normally used to treat heart failure) and later delivered (induction abortion). One type of later abortion, a D&X (Dilatation & Extraction, sometimes referred to as a partial birth abortion) is when an intact late second or third trimester baby is delivered breech except for the head, and the cranial contents are sucked out of the skull to decompress it enough to be delivered.
In the Cox case, the D&E likely involved dismembering her live unborn baby or killing the baby first with digoxin, so the baby doesn’t move around so much during the removal of body parts. This would have been after Cox’s cervix was forcibly dilated and instruments were used to grasp and pull out the baby out in pieces; an arm, a leg, a torso, and the head, which usually has to be crushed in order to remove it without difficulty. The brutality of this procedure is difficult to comprehend.
Most OBGYNs are actually not trained in this procedure, as it is difficult to perform and known to carry significant risk to the mother. Those risks include hemorrhage, perforation of the uterus from surgical instruments or fetal bone fragments, infection or sepsis from incomplete removal of fetal and pregnancy tissues, and future risk of preterm birth due to the forcible dilation of the cervix. Many OBGYNs don’t do this procedure because it is so emotionally jarring to pull out a baby piece by piece.
Bear in mind, the unborn baby with Trisomy 18 is no threat to the mother and there are many of these babies that do survive and live with their disability.
The idea that mothers or society feel justified with targeting a baby for a brutal death because of his or her disability is chilling. This does not mean pro-life doctors don’t care for the mother; her physical and emotional wellbeing require careful discussion and shared decision-making regarding her route of delivery. These discussions are the same if a baby is stillborn. Pro-life doctors have been providing life-affirming care for women for decades while knowing that we have two patients — the mother and her unborn child — who are both human beings regardless of any disabilities.
This year, I had the privilege of caring for a woman whose baby had Trisomy 13. The baby had multiple physical abnormalities but the parents wanted their child to be treated with dignity as we would any other unborn baby. The hospital scheduled meetings regarding the possible outcomes, as the parents were very clear they would never consider termination.
Their baby was born alive at 38 weeks and the parents and siblings were able to spend several hours with their new family member before he peacefully passed away. The parents remained strong in the face of visible annoyance communicated by some hospital administration and staff regarding their decision, some of which seemed to surround perceived medico-legal issues. Ultimately, this couple was able to hold and say goodbye to their son before his death.
“Sparing them” this gift of humanity by preemptively killing their son was unthinkable to them, like a reminder of eugenics of times past. These parents are my heroes.
Bio: Dr. Poppy Daniels is an pro-life OBGYN & hormone/recurrent pregnancy loss/fertility expert in private practice in Ozark, MO. She is on X @drpoppyBHRT and her website is drpoppyandco.com.
